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Grisbane turns to Terrill and nods in his direction, "If a trial by combat is what is required to settle this matter then my companion here would gladly represent us as a champion. If the flame speaker has the power and is the voice of the flame, let him prove it thusly to his tribe." Grisbane considers the arrangement and adds, "A duel, quarter to be given if requested. If our champion wins, you will agree to provide us whatever information you are able about the item we seek. Are we in agreement?"
"Very well..." You hear mumbling coming from behind the statue.
Then the creature partially steps out, it's skin nearly the same color as the statue and points a finger at Terrill. A ray of bright light shoots out from his finger toward Terrill.
The ray slams into Terrill.
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"Cleverly done," Terrill says quietly, "you never agreed on what happens if I lose..."
Terrill steps towards the figure who has appeared behind the statue, and is struck by the ray of light. It catches him completely unaware, and he is unable to resist its effect.
If he is able, he hurtles toward the statue, and swings his sword at his opponent.
The bright ray hits Terrill and it explodes into powerful motes of light, blinding Terrill's vision.
Terrill moves toward where he remembered the creature and swings blindly. Instead of hitting stone as he was expecting, the blade hits something soft and continues cutting through into something hard. Nearly severing the creatures head from it's body. It slumps over, bleeding out on the floor. The kobolds gasp, all except the larger one who cheers out in glee.
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Terrill looks around in blind confusion, wondering what the creature's magic ray has done to him, and what the gasping and cheering is about. He holds his blade up defensively and calls out, "I can't see! Who did I hit? Is he still up? Did I win?"
As his vision clears, he sees that he has slain his opponent in a single swing of his blade. A grin on his face, he looks upwards and says, "Bless you, Lady Luck! You've smiled on me again." He then turns back towards his companions and says, "We had some questions we wanted answered, didn't we?"
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Grisbane shakes his head, "Why yes, we did actually. And you may have just sliced the answers into the afterlife. I had no idea you were such a fine swordsman. My hat is off to you."
Ozi will search the fallen combatant for anything useful, while Grisbane speaks to the larger of the kobolds.
Speaking to the lead kobold, Grisbane inquires, "It appears your speaker has been judged, and was found lacking. Perhaps you can assist us in helping us find what we seek? I can only assume you and your tribe know the lay of this place fairly well? The sooner we find our objective, the sooner we can leave you in peace to go about your lives."
The kobold nods "We will give you any information you need if you will leave. Also, for your aid with the false prophet... thank you..."
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Ozi completes his search and shares the results with Grisbane, who immediately stops his questioning and says, "Well, blame my eyes for not seeing it, but it seems our vanquished friend here had our main objective all along, taking the jade katana from Ozi and tucking it into his belt." He then turned his attention to the kobold and asked, "We are looking for some trade agreements. They would be piles of papers, maybe scrolls. I would guess there would be a good number of them." Grisbane speaks to the kobolds in Draconic to make sure he gets his meaning across, and not lost in translation for the kobolds.
The larger kobold points back the way you came "There is a hallway off of the main rooms with a large dragon statue with many heads. The doorway to the south leads to an old writing chamber. We have not explored it really but saw the stuff to write with. I would guess that is your best bet. I wouldn't go the other way." she motions to the room to the south, "There is an evil well and a nasty spider that way."
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Nodding to the kobold, Grisbane says "Very well. We will fulfill our end of the agreement and leave you in peace. We need to make a quick stop to pick up the documents and then we shall be on our way from this place." With that Grisbane nods to Terrill and he and Ozi head out the door from whence they came, back down the hall, and to the door the kobold indicated was their destination.
At the door, Ozi will wait for the party to assemble as best as possible in the narrow hallway, and will motion for Terrill to stand ready.
After the party gets ready near the door and the door is opened. This large room looks like it was once a scribing chamber. The remains of many desks are scattered about, and amid the rubble is a number of long-dried inkwells, other writing utensils, and scraps of paper. These things are covered with black mold and patches of light green mushrooms. To the southwest the wall opens into another room.
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From the hall, Grisbane quietly mutters an arcane phrase and a greenish translucent shield forms around Ozi for a moment before fading into nothingness.
Ok my friend, since you are the one with the good eyes, introduce yourself.
Ozi enters the room and moves up to the creature. Being as how everyone has been so friendly with the inhabitants of late, he waits for a response from the moldy thing before doing anything aggressive.
Amid a particularly thick patch of fungus in the southeast sits a pale and crusty froglike humanoid. It trembles and twitches as it stands and lurches forward. His skin is patchy and dry, like a squid left out in the
sun and sand. His bulbous eyes open, and light stabs out from them. It seems to have been sustaining itself for years on the light green fungus that covers this room. It moves to attack.
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Terrill hears Ozi attacking something, and sees a flash of bright light. He steps into the room, his blade drawn and his eyes averted. He is better prepared for the bright light this time around, and is able to keep from being blinded. Sadly, he appears to be a much more effective swordsman when blind, and his strike misses the ugly creature.
Magda casts her firey spell which sears the creatures flesh. Polami moves up and attacks the creature
Crashing her flail into the creatures head, it falls to the ground it's rear legs twitching momentarily before there is no movement at all.
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After moving into the room and taking position as a sentry, Magda speaks to her companions:
"Companions, I wish to discuss our prospects in this place. It seems we have accomplished our most important objective, that of locating the lost heirloom katana. Are those papers here, as we were told they might be? I am curious what other important objectives we have yet to accomplish before we leave this place. "
You can tell that the various violent encounters, one-sided as they have been, have taken the luster off Magda's first dungeon experience. She is much less bouncy-cheery.
Looking into the other adjoining room to the southwest you see 3 alcoves lined with book shelves. In these alcoves are mostly rotten and mildew ridden papers, however there are a few scrolls tubes which do indeed have intact papers inside. All of which are written in Kelish. There is a door to the south, based off the layout Maurit had provided you would expect it to lead you to the main hallway you entered these ruins in.
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Grisbane nods to Magda and says, "We are done. Let us be off and out of this place. We gave our word to the kobolds and I intend to honor it."
With that he and Ozi gather up the documents and head out of the room to the south. Once there they step across the corridor and once again into the fresh air of the gully, leaving the blackness and stale air of the underground complex behind them at last.